An anonymous hacker who has exploited an iCloud security flaw that lets anyone unlock a lost or stolen iPhone says Apple contacted him about the matter today, but he deleted the email.

“They have asked me to contact [them] as quickly as possible, but why now?” the hacker, who goes by AquaXetine, said in an email to Cult of Mac. “I’ve already warned Apple couple months ago.” Cult of Mac confirmed that the email did in fact come from Apple.

The hack, which is the first of its kind, bypasses the iCloud security system for locked iOS devices called Activation Lock. By using the free DoulCi site, which appeared to be offline most of the day but is now back up, a locked iOS device can be tricked into thinking it’s talking to Apple’s iCloud servers when connected to a computer.

When it was introduced in iOS 7, Apple called Activation Lock “a really powerful theft deterrent.”

With iPhone theft accounting for about half the crimes in cities like San Francisco and New York, lawmakers are pushing legislation that requires all smartphones to have built-in kill switches. Activation Lock is Apple’s answer to the problem, a fail-safe introduced in iOS 7 to keep stolen iPhones and iPads from being usable. The system is designed to keep the contents of locked devices unreadable and unable to be erased without the user’s Apple ID.

Just deleted the mail from Apple ;) They are sooooooooo toooo late — AquaXetine (@AquaXetine) May 21, 2014

The hackers responsible for bypassing iCloud and Activation Lock, known by online pseudonyms AquaXetine and MerrukTechnolog, form Team DoulCi (roughly “iCloud” backward).

Their exploit, which they are labeling “the world’s first iCloud Activation Bypass,” involves adding just one line of code to the “hosts” file on a desktop computer. Instructions can be found on the tool’s new website, DoulCi. Dutch publication De Telegraaf first reported news of the hack this morning.

Security researcher and iOS hacker Steven De Franco described the bypass as a “man-in-the-middle attack,” which means that it intercepts traffic going between a device and Apple’s servers. “It seems like it’s a firmware-related bug,” said De Franco in an interview with Cult of Mac. “So it would require a new update [from Apple] to patch it.”

When the hack is used and an iPhone is tricked past Activation Lock, the SIM card becomes unreadable “because they don’t have Apple’s private keys to tell the phone whether it’s unlocked or not,” explained De Franco. The two hackers behind DoulCi have sai they have a fix coming for the SIM block issue.

The DoulCi website says the tool was “built with love for the people to give them a second chance to get there iDevices working again” and is “only for personal use.”

Tweets show that thousands of locked iPhones around the world have been bypassed using the tool just today. Most of the tweets thanking the two hackers come from outside of the U.S, where stolen iOS devices are shipped and sold at a premium on the black market.

In the Philippines, a Twitter user showed six iPhones that were unlocked.

The hackers claim the project has been a huge success. Earlier today, they posted screenshots of server logs claiming 5,700 devices had been unlocked in just five minutes. Later, they claimed another 10,000 devices had been unlocked. The two hackers say they worked on the exploit for five months and contacted Apple in March. Apple did not respond to Cult of Mac’s requests for comment.

If they say that two months is too long for a company to verify their hack and get back to them they aren’t the white hats they claim to be.

Apple fanboy

No, two months is not too long to verify the hack, but it is certainly more than enough to simply acknowledge the problem and show some god damn interest!

If you read the original report about this, Apple COMPLETELY IGNORED these guys, they did not even bother to respond at all.

You’re making it sound as if Apple asked for some time to verify the problem and these guys cut it short. No, Apple did not even acknowledge the problem.

Would it have killed Apple to say “ok, thanks for the report, we will be looking into it, please send us more info how to reproduce it”?

But no, Apple is a company full of arrogant assholes who think they are smarter than everyone else, and their users are now suffering because of it (not for the first time, I might add).

P.S.Before you accuse me of being an Android fanboy or whatever, between me and my wife we own and actively use 2 iPods, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and a Macbook Air, and I am considering purchasing a Macbook Pro Retina as well. The only Android device we have is some cheap Android phone my wife was given from work, which she only uses for work related calls and not much else.

That’s 7 Apple devices in my household, with an 8th one potentially on the way. If anything, I am an Apple fanboy. I really love Apple products, both hardware and software, but I don’t let that blind me to the fact that Apple as a company has some serious attitude problems.

sigzero

AquaXetine still comes off as an asshat here though. Why does it matter how long it took them? Front and center is his twitter reaction that makes him look like a dick.

dcj001

“but also unable to be erased without the user’s Apple ID.”

and password.

troydl

thats the description for activation lock… the exploit allows people to bypass it

The Gnome

@AquaXetine …. attention whore at best.

TJ

And now that server will be traced and Interpol will be knocking down the door. Pure genius you idiot.

Natrual Born Citizen

HAHAHAHAHAH INTERPOL THIS GUY!!!! ROFL

Defiled0m3n

Except that it can’t since they use an SSD Cloud solution for their server… Will trace back to the SSD Cloud Host company instead of their home :D

Paul Lloyd Johnson

“We’ve made a way to make stolen iPhones worth something again! Aren’t we great!”

Utter assholes.

Mounir Touati

Well at least they had the balls to warn Apple since more than 2 months ago, you don’t keep your doors open if you want to find your house the way you left it…May be this way they would take such warnings in consideration, in time. Why the heck they don’t listen to young fresh minds as soon as they get their pockets full of dollars !!!

lowtolerance

And then they deleted the email when Apple responded(supposedly anyway, not sure how CoM can claim to have confirmed that an email seen by no one but this one guy actually existed at all, let alone came from Apple), which should make any reasonable person question their intentions to begin with, and whether they actually contacted Apple about it initially at all.

Mounir Touati

This is not only Apple’s way of doing things, but this is American way. They don’t believe the threat is real till they got it deeply in the a**, Pearl Harbor, 9/11…They are treating people the way Steve Jobs was treated at his beginnings, Scott Forstall. How can there be any innovation if you don’t give the others the opportunity to show their way of doing things differently???

lowtolerance

I am absolutely confounded and deeply offended that you would compare this situation to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, and greatly amused that you could believe this situation has anything to do with innovation or Steve Jobs or Scott Forstall. I don’t know if you’re trolling or just legitimately delusional.

its all bs their is no bypass for the iphone the only one that works is gadgetwide.com

Riana Rustela

thanck you Roger. for me it worked

Mark

That’s a lie and Riana Rustela is in on this Con. What a bunch of losers!

j_carrington

Considering our government does exactly the same self-serving thing but in the billions and trillions of dollars, your comment appears misdirected. FACT: Cult of Apple has it that purchased devices still belong to, and should be administrated by, Apple. Wrong. Just because this ‘exploit’ allows stolen phones to be reactivated is still small potatoes to the legitimate use of secondary purchased devices. If you want legitimate examples just visit a pawn shop. They have dozens of iDevices sitting around unsaleable (not stolen) because they cannot get the iCloud activation locks off.

Apple is a company that TELLS us what we should do. Apple’s cult followers preach this nonsense as if it were dogma. FACT: Apple asserts we cannot use non-Apple approved usb accessories with iDevices – we proved them wrong by plugging in guitars, keyboards and just about anything into our iDevices – Apple reduced power output from 100mA to 20mA with iOS 4.2.1 – Apple proved their words true by forcing a ‘block’ to ‘freedom of use’ of our purchased devices. And this continues with every major update. Cult of Apple is at the fore, not truth, common sense or what’s right.

Respect those with legitimate grievances. They are the majority.

Jesse Levesque

Many of the iPhones and other locked Apple devices are NOT stolen! And Apple won’t do sh-t to help people with locked Apple devices find the original owners! So f__k you!

aardman

Anybody going to make the claim that those unlocked stolen phones cannot be relocked by Apple? Because they do have the digital paper trail you know. And unlocking the phone doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly no longer stolen property.

Steve Hokenson

It’s very likely a software update will prompt a connection to Apple’s servers and replace the unlock status with locked. I have heard of similar hacks in the past months and phones getting re-locked. This sounds like a similar situation.

PMB01

In my mind, this is facilitating theft. They’re telling all the iPhone thieves that it’s okay again because we can make the stolen phone usable again, thus upping its market value. They clearly didn’t have any noble intentions here. These guys are going to pay BIG TIME!

Mounir Touati

We’ll may be this way, some fat silly manager could move his a** and take young’s initiatives in consideration in time, with all the money they are making they are just getting too lazy

G. Dionne

All of your points of view are way too narrow. Just like jail-breaking & unlocking is legal in the US so should this be and … it will be. Why? because there are legitimate uses for it as described in some of the posts here and elsewhere. True, they can be illegitimate uses but when is software going to stop thieves – really, think of it. Bottom line is that no company should force consumers to interact with them after they have purchased a device if they desire or if they forgot password, etc. If you want theft to stop, support good parenting initiatives. Forcing consumers to jump through hoops just to use products they have purchased from Apple, ebay or someone on the street is just plain wrong. I hope the doulCi guys release the server software so that everyone can run their own servers – doulCi are you listening?

PMB01

You’re absolutely wrong and horribly misguided. The US is already moving toward making this mandatory for all phones. The government supports Apple wanting to curb smartphone theft and Activation Lock is a great deterrent for thieves wanting to make a quick buck.

G. Dionne

Anyone who uses words like “absolute” should be ignored.

PMB01

Anyone who condones theft should be ignored.

G. Dionne

Learn to read. I did not condone theft. You now shall be ignored. over and out.

PMB01

This hack was for the express purpose of helping thieves, regardless of what you think. By supporting this hack, you support theft. Nice job, asshole.

G. Dionne

sorry, could not resist. Only those who cannot express themselves resort to profanities :)

PMB01

Those that point their finger at others do so because they have no logical backing for their argument. Care to try again?

Xerxes

How’s this for a non-theft scenario:My company buys used Apple devices regularly, always verifying that the IMEI is clear (ie device hasn’t been reported stolen) before buying. All someone has to do is leave one logged into iCloud before selling it, and if they decide to ignore our attempts to contact them after the deal’s done, we could be left with a useless device. Maybe not a likely scenario, especially since we know to check in advance for it, but it’s happened before.

j_carrington

Ignorant beyond belief. Regardless of the secondary use of ‘any’ device, legitimate or illegitimate, is none of YOUR business – and no company has the right to limit the secondary use of a device purchased and owned outright by a consumer. Same can be said for CARS! Next to a house, a car is the second most expensive luxury item we purchase. Regardless of whether it is sold legitimately, stolen, damaged significantly or VIN mistake, no car manufacturer has the right to determine its secondary value or use. Once a car has been determined damaged or stolen to a total loss by an insurance company it is assigned a salvage title: still salvageable for use, repair or recycle. And phones are/should be no different. Since when did ‘phones’ become more valuable than cars? …Since idiot consumers, manufacturers and legislators (the idiot government) said so.

PMB01

That’s literally the stupidest comment I’ve ever read. You’re the only person asserting that phones are more valuable than cars, which isn’t even an apt comparison. Keep your ignorance and idiocy to yourself.

CR613

hey numbnuts I purchased a phone second hand and after erasing everything I am stuck on icloud activation ! the person I purchased the phone is not responding back to my emails !called apple and they won’t do shit! so fuck off and stop calling the legitimate people that are stuck supporting thieves !

PMB01

Your own fault. Apple has no obligation to help you since you obviously bought a stolen phone. Possession of stolen goods is a crime and, by no means, a legitimate usage for bypassing Activation Lock. Try buying your phone from a reputable seller next time, moron.

vince

I dont think PMB01 understood human language , ignorance numbnuts. Since when a phone become a non resell-able item? Even my own phone, after restore, keyin icloud password for activation, the stupid Apple keep saying i keyin the wrong password while i 100% its not wrong.

PMB01

Sounds like the only numbnuts here is you. Learn to speak, dum dum. People might actually take you seriously if you do.

Mounir Touati

Somebody have to think deeply how to get rid of old fashioned minds that are surely brilliant only for keeping out of phase with young evolving competences who proved to be more efficient than fat silly managers.

Whocares

Uh…what are you talking about? Is it related to Activation Lock?

Mounir Touati

They are getting OLD and they are denying it, they are not surprising anymore, people know almost everything about new products way long before the keynote takes place…where are the days of “One more thing”

Arendt

I wonder if apple will find themselves in the same legal mess that Snapchat did when a security feature was misadvertized as uncrackable.

eawortman

Not too likely. Their website says “Activation Lock makes it harder for anyone to use or sell your iPhone,iPad, or iPod touch if it’s ever lost or stolen.”

http://www.mercifull.com/ Matt Sims

In order for this to work won’t the locked iPhone have to already be connected to the malicious wifi? Seems limited in scope for an in-the-wild attack of this nature.

Rene Knaake

Hunt them down, they are just a bunch of criminals with just one thing in mind: how to facilitate their phone stealing friends. Let them find out how US law deals with this kind of hackers.

Jeremiah_Nilsson

They’re Dutch, that means that CIA has to be sent after them…

DAM

Yeah their site promptly directs you to the “donate” section…mf!!A couple of weeks ago I was at phone shop in RO which unlocks mobile phones and a guy came in with a 4 or 4s( I couldn’t tell) and asked if there is something that can be done. The answer was that if i Cloud lock was active there was nothing to be done. The disappointed look on that guy’s face filled me up with joy. And now this crap came …….

Alexandru Mihnea MOUCHA

In Romania a month ago I was offered a Galaxy S5 on the platform of the main railway station (Gara de Nord). Of course I did not even want to discuss because such kind of “deals” (even if the phone would have been genuine and perfectly working) involve stolen property and by buying a stolen good you become a loop in the chain, actually encouraging them to steal further.

Bill Griggs

The disappointed look on my daughter’s face when she couldn’t use the IPhone she bought off Ebay didn’t fill me with joy. The ad said it was in great condition and just went on and on about all the features of the phone but tucked in the ad was a little blip that said “locked/not working/parts only”. Everything else about this long ad with lots of pictures made it sound like this was a great fully functional phone. She spent all of her Christmas money on this thing, couldn’t get any of it back. I wish I had have seen the ad before she bought it, but I may have missed that little line too. She’s 13, bought it through her mother’s account after losing her IPhone. The guy you saw with the disappointed look may have been swindled too.

We found the original owner who lives several hundred miles away. She said the phone was stolen and she’d replaced it. She agreed to take some money and have it unlocked, but just kept the money and blew us off. People suck.

DAM

Well Bill I must say that I was amazed by your post!You admit that you bought stolen property ,which thanks to Apple was unusable(as it should be) and yet you’re totally unhappy with this “situation”…..

Maybe next time you’ll see “locked/not working/parts only” will be obvious enough that you shouldn’t buy it for any other than that and in fact ,based on you own experience , you shouldn’t buy it at all!

Bill Griggs

I didn’t buy it. My 13 year old daughter did and it was an honest mistake. I had nothing to do with it, didn’t know anything about it until after the fact. She purchased it on Ebay from my ex wife’s account at my ex wife’s home. I don’t think 13 year olds should have IPhones. Her mother bought her one though and she promptly lost it. Then my daughter scrimped and saved to buy another and lost all of her money buying this phone believing it was a working used phone in excellent condition.

You should have seen the ad on Ebay. I’m sure ads like that fool a lot of people are aren’t little 13 year old girls. In the beginning of the ad it actually said the phone was in excellent working condition and then it had several pages of what I guess was Apple promotional material about all this great stuff you can do with an IPhone 5. There was that little line tucked in there toward the end, tiny print and not even a complete sentence, but everything else about this long ad made it sound like this was a great deal on a great phone. It is obvious the seller was hoping to fool people.

I don’t own an IPhone, by the way, or know anything about them. I didn’t know what “locked” or ICloud meant until I had to deal with this issue. I am upset about my little girl getting ripped off. I’m not so happy about the original owner of the phone taking my money on the promise to have the phone unlocked and then not doing it either. I suppose what i was trying to say with my original reply to you is that maybe you shouldn’t feel so gleeful about the disappointment people might experience when they can’t get their IPhones to work. A lot of these people are good faith purchasers of phones they thought were simply used phones, not stolen. They’re spending hundreds of dollars and they’re getting ripped off too. That guy you were laughing about might have been a good guy who had been conned out of his hard earned money.

And you know what, DAM? If I thought this hack would work so my little girl could use her IPhone, I’d use it in a heartbeat, but I suspect that even if it did work temporarily Apple will upgrade their system later and counter this hack.

Why do you have to be so smug and hateful?

nanoco

A life lesson is bad things happen to all of us…and there are bad people out there who will cheat and steal from us. An other is we should not do wrong because someone did some wrong to us! It is sad that you don’t know this…giving your daughter this kind of lesson is much more valuable than material things such as an iPhone. BTW what if this phone was stolen from some other guy’s 10 year old?

Kris Brand

These guys sound like real d-bags. And their name isn’t “iCloud” backwards. It’s “iCluod”, which isn’t anything really. I’m guessing they meant it to be iCloud, but i’m not surprised they couldn’t spell it.

JSintheStates

So you can be a super-nerd, or a giga-geek, or a meta-hacker—and still be a douche!

acmphotodude

So typical of these types…”built with love for the people” is just a way of providing a way for scumbag dirtbags, cheats and thieves to be able to profit. I have no use for people like “doulci” and when, hopefully, they’re caught I just hope the cops lock them up and forget where they put them. They don’t deserve to be on this earth.

David Jensen

“They don’t deserve to be on this earth.” Who are you? God? I don’t think so. Please think before you open your mouth… I’m sorry dude but you have very little understanding of the society we live in. I don’t like this either but there is a very simple explanation if you care to think for a few minutes… No one deserves what you are saying, not even you for being so ignorant. I’m sorry if I offend you. Peace

Whocares

So according to you, thieves are acceptable?

David Jensen

No, but I understand why we have thieves. Big difference from the guy above who just wanna play “god”.

acmphotodude FUKING IDIOT

acmphotodude STFU !

Nick V

SO no one is upset that Apple could have fixed this, but chose to let a hacker invade their systems? The Onus is on Apple, not the hacker. They gave Apple plenty of time to fix this, but Apple likes to think that they are the Gold Standard. They aren’t even close

Whocares

Dude, read it again. Hacker didn’t invade no Apple iCloud. He built another Cloud and made the iPhone think that it connects to Apple iCloud. Breaking into Apple iCloud? Probably in his wet dream.

digitaldumdum

“Apple too late to stop massive iCloud breach, hackers claim”

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! What a bunch of BS. All you need to know about this non-issue is that the so-called hacker “deleted Apple’s email” (if he even got one), apparently in a petulant act of defiance. How ridiculous. Any person—especially a concerned hacker—would not be offended by inattention, but rather more than happy to provide help whenever it was requested.

Good rule of thumb: don’t keep any info on your cell phone (iPhone or otherwise) that you don’t want someone to see or have. There’s •always• a way in. Store financial information, passwords and other sensitive data in 1Password for iOS (256 bit-encrypted), let it sync with Dropbox where it’s safe (while encrypted), and worry not.

And to the guy who deleted Apple’s email: Phooey!

Steve Hokenson

This may seem unrelated, but bear with me…I am surprised that Apple hasn’t allowed for found iPhones to be returned to owners, as I have done with a found Fitbit this week. I contacted FitBit support, they sent me a pre-paid FedEx label, which allowed me to print and take the package over to Kinko’s across the street. With little hassle, a FitBit will get returned to its owner. I do realize there are lots of stolen iPhones, but there are also plenty of reasons why legitimate, honest owners want to unlock an iPhone. Another situation is for traveling overseas and needing to use another service while out of the USA, and having no intention of breaking their agreement to their home carrier.

Stephen

You have activation lock confused with a lock into a network, activation lock is an anti theft device, which makes your phone unusable is lost or stolen. if its your phone, you can unlock it with your iCloud credentials and use it again. network lock means you can’t use another companies sim card if you are travelling abroad, 2 totally different things.

Steve Hokenson

It’s my understanding that DoulCi unlocks for the network lock as well, though it’s not consistent on all devices at this time. I am indeed confused if this doesn’t network unlock at all. I believe the network lock status looks to the same Apple servers on restore, which DoulCi will also bypass, no?

Whocares

No. You understand it wrong. He claimed about bypassing the activation lock, so the device can be used again. Please do some research on “Activation Lock”

Steve Hokenson

See [http://www.doulci.net/letter.png], which indicates the intended use is also for those users needing to unlock a (service) locked phone.

Arthur

Good news. Activation lock is crap anyway.

A good security system should protect user’s data (e.g. with encryption and/or a remote erase command… like it’s done on androids), and only the user’s data. Locking or destroying the hardware is just wrong.

No, that’s the whole point of Activation Lock, to prevent the hardware from being usable if it’s not in the hands of the original owners. If someone stole an iPhone/iPad, prior to this exploit being released, the hardware would be completely unusable except for parts. That’s to make stealing iPhones and iPads far less beneficial.

Dan Elam

Except that it wasn’t an iCloud hack. Apple’s servers were not hacked: this was a way for people to activate iPhones *without* going to Apple’s servers. Claiming iCloud has hacked just isn’t true, but it probably drives website page views. I love CultofMac, but this is poor reporting.

http://davidkmackenzie.com David MacKenzie

Well, my son committed suicide last year and no one could/would (Apple, ATT, etc) help us unlock his phone to retrieve his info. I think this is a justified use. I haven’t tried it yet, so hopefully it does what I need.

David Jensen

I’m sorry to hear that! <3

Joe Mahoney

My wife died a few years ago. All of her texts, voicemail, anything and everything on her phone was important to me. I had a different issue at the time, that was not an activation lock, but my local Apple store was above and beyond helpful and understanding. One specific issue that they could not help me with at the store, was addressed by the engineers at Apple in California. I had to let them ship her phone to do it. I remember the panic and fear of loosing that phone, as if I could loose her again. I’m sure its the data in the phone that matters to you, and not the actual phone itself, but they took care of both with me, I would use the term giving. I connected with a human that day, who saw me as another human being that was hurting and helped me because he cared. I would go to another apple store, or even the same one and you may get an entirely different experience. There are exceptional people out there, I found some along the way. The rest of grief is a rollercoaster, year two is much harder as the shock has worn off and your trying to DO rather than go through the motions. I hear year three is better, I hold onto that hope. That’s my story, maybe you’ll find something in there to help you with the phone, I know how tough they can be sometimes.

Whocares

I’m still thinking this is load of shit. I don’t believe it. BTW, a hacker deleted Apple’s email? why would he do that instead of posting it up to prove his point? Pathetic.

Yalan Dunya

Fuck the haters and thanks to DolCi

Arif Ali

Another scam for taking hard earned money from pockets of people.

http://oecd.org/ Tom Tucker

Apple just told me they emailed him to offer a contract job, but Apple thinks he is clearly too smart to understand that. LOL

GreenGuyD

Nothing is 100% hack proof. Stop acting as if security researchers did something wrong. Glad their making money and providing a solution. Maliciousness is a side effect of good tools. I could stab you with a fork lol…would the fork company be wrong for making forks?

Cipralex

Hello Guys, Any one can tell me if are any solution to bypass Icloud? the doulCi server its off

alexpar79878

who has time for waiting for server onlinebypassicloud7activation dot com

disqus_gV5PTOMmTM

I unlocked 2 iPads using doulci and they worked fine until did a reset (settings and content), once the reset completed the iPads were locked again and asking for original purchasers apple id and password.

Riste Kocev

This is this : cultofmac :)

http://www.google.com Petar Krstov

I was on the internet the other day searching on the web and i found this site (www.bypassicloudlock.net) who i think is the second version of Dulci site, they have the same name? Or maybe there is something new about bypass icloud lock.

Slavica Baltovska

Just discovered an new website that developed a icloud bypass tool. I fixed my iPhone 5S activation lock today using the Bypass iCloud Activation Lock tool by devteam.

Ben

Apple has a clear conflict of interest in this situation. They profit from making it easy for thieves to use their services. For example, as part of the iTunes music store, the iPhone’s serial # is checked to make sure you don’t exceed a 5 device limit by downloading the song. However, Apple never checks to see if the serial # is reported stolen. Apple could re-affirm a phone as having a stolen status by confirming the phone with each of the services that provide value to the iphone. While a thief being denied access to Apple Maps might not be a big deal, being completely cut off from the App Store would greatly reduce the value in stealing these devices. Instead, it seems clear that Apple see value in continuing to get their 30% of the sales of apps even if the original owner was held at gun point just to get the device into the hands of the person buying the app.

It is the most telling that “Find My Phone” only works as long as the settings on the phone establishes it as being associated with a specific iCloud account and activated. There is no option to re-active it remotely and once the device is put through a DFU and wipe, it is no longer your phone according to “Find My Phone.” The serial # of the phone still remains the same as what you purchased but Apple make no further attempts to treat it as your property going forward.

bypassicloudactivationlock

Thanks for this info

Giovanni Candido da Silva

Stolen or bypass a stoled device to personal use is the same. Who Do that are as robber as the one who maybe even kill to stole.

You should return the device to the legitmate owner, even if you buy the device for the thief, you simple became the thief. That is not a phylosofical question, that is the simple rational truth, if you don’t care you just assume to be a thief because you legitmate and imitate their actions. You just don’t have the ball to steel by yourself, so you contract someone to do that for you. Anything contrary to return the device to the owner has the same pratical consequences as what I just say, you can “justify” for yourself to live with the fact that you are a thief, but that is it, you live with that, but you don’t change the fact.

vince

what about they are the owner, not everyone real good in this kind of new tech stuff, they might not using or remember they icloud password, moreover, will this help the owner get back their phone? Not likely. If u can lock the phone, dont tell me they cant track the phone after its reported as stolen.

About the author

Alex Heath is a senior writer at Cult of Mac and co-host of the CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like "ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation." If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Twitter always works too.

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